Daniela Pierre-Bravo Teaches Us How to 'Earn It' Daniela Pierre-Bravo has never met an obstacle more formidable than her will. Disqualified from college scholarships due to her legal status, she built a thriving local Mary Kay business to pay for it. Invited to an interview for an unpaid internship in NYC, she took an 18-hour overnight bus from Ohio and showed up the next morning. And nailed it. Now And now she's the coauthor of the new book, Earn It: A ​ Career Guide for Women in Their Twenties and Beyond with ​ ​ ​ MSNBC Morning Joe host Mika Brzezinski. ___________________________________________________________________________________ Alicia Menendez: Hey. For those of you who follow us on Instagram or Twitter, you may already know this, but for those of you who don't, we have merch. We have a brand new mug, perfect for your morning coffee con leche or matcha tea or whatever it is you're into. We've got these canvas pouches that you can use to organize your bag, put in your headphones, your lipstick. And then, we have these sticker sets that you can put wherever you want. I have mine on my laptop. I love it. My laptop feels so much cooler. We'd be so grateful if you headed over to latinatoLatina.com/shop. Check it out. Buy one for yourself, for your friend, for your favorite listener. Again, we love you. We love being able to do this for you, and creating a product at this level requires things like studio time, sound engineer, and so, a little bit of support will really go a long way. Thank you so much, and remember, check out latinatolatina.com/shop. Clip (Daniela I didn't have any professional mentors. I didn't have a roadmap. I didn't have Pierre-Bravo): parents who knew the lay of the land. I didn't have anybody advising me. And so, something happens when you're the only person that you can count on and you're not really waiting for anybody to show you what to do. Menendez: For a long time, I knew Daniela Pierre-Bravo as a producer on MSNBC's Morning Joe, but recently I learned her full story. She's a dreamer who made her way through college selling Mary Kay, earned a coveted spot as an NBC page, and quickly proved herself as a whip-smart television producer. And now, she's the co-author of the new book, Earn It!, a career guide for women in their 20s and ​ ​ beyond. Daniela, so fun for me to be the producer and for you to be the guest. Pierre-Bravo: Yay! So fun to be here. Thank you so much. Menendez: I'm happy to have you. You were born in Chile. You moved to Ohio around age 11. How did you learn that you were undocumented? Latina to Latina: Daniela Pierre-Bravo Teaches Us How to ‘Earn It’ 1 Pierre-Bravo: Well, I was trying to get ready for college, and I didn't really understand. I remember going on an eighth-grade trip to Washington and waiting at the bus, because I couldn't go to the White House. And it didn't hit me that I didn't have an ID. At the time, I had a social security number, so I didn't really pry. I didn't really ask. I don't know if that was subconscious or not. But, it didn't really hit me until I started looking for colleges. And I really tried my best throughout college to not only be a great student but be in those advanced classes and extracurriculars, because I really wanted to have a good opportunity to go to a great college. But, then it hit me that my parents couldn't afford it, which I kind of knew, but then, when I was trying to find loans, come to find out that, "Oh, I'm undocumented. I can't qualify for any loans." Menendez: Were you ever concerned for your safety after that? Pierre-Bravo: I don't know if I was scared or concerned for my safety, but I became sort of fearless, because I lived in a small town in Ohio. I didn't have any professional mentors. I didn't have a roadmap. I didn't have parents who knew the lay of the land. I didn't have anybody advising me. And so, something happens when you're the only person that you can count on and you're not really waiting for anybody to show you what to do. And you kind of have to figure it out for yourself. So I just remember being kind of fearless about it all. Menendez: And it wasn't on your radar that ICE could show up at your front door and pull your family apart? Pierre-Bravo: I was just so trying to get myself into college and keep going forward that I didn't think about it. Menendez: Did your plans for when you grew up change when you learned about your status? Pierre-Bravo: I think it definitely limited my possibilities of what I could be. So, I always wanted to work in TV. I had this lofty idea of being part of how culture is told and bringing to the table different voices and people that reflected my background. And so, I wanted to be part of how that culture was told. Ironically, that's my job now. But, at the time, I realized that I didn't have a way to do that. That was kind of a nearly impossible plan. So I thought, "Well, I'm going to go to college, try to take it one step at a time. And I'll go to law school, because that's the only way that I can keep going in my education, and I won't have to find a job." So I was just really trying to take it one step at a time. Menendez: You now—congratulations—you joined the long list of Latina to Latina guests who either thought they'd go to law school or did go to law school and then didn't become lawyers. You go to college in-state in Ohio. Most students have a work-study job, but you did something very different to get through Miami University. Latina to Latina: Daniela Pierre-Bravo Teaches Us How to ‘Earn It’ 2 Pierre-Bravo: Well, I wish I could have at school. I wish I had the opportunity to work legally. I would have loved that. But, I found out that that wasn't an option for me, and I would have to get creative. I mean, really creative about my options, because I ended up scouring the internet every night. This was like a ritual. As soon as I found out I was undocumented, and even when I was in college, every night I would scour the internet for private scholarships, for writing contests, for Craigslist jobs, whether it was busing tables short-term or working at bars as a barback. And, you know, Mary Kay was something that came to the table when I was 18 years old. I learned that you could be your own boss and I thought, well, if nobody would hire me, I'll hire myself. And, what's interesting is that I had to take a semester off school to really build that business, because, at the time, I had a social security number, so I was able to use that. And I was hiring women around rural Ohio and learning on YouTube Accounting 101 and teaching them all these different ways to build their business. And I was in the shadows at the time, so nobody knew what was really going on. Menendez: You're the first person in your family to go to an American college. What were you expecting when you moved into that dorm? Pierre-Bravo: What was I not expecting? I was just so excited to experience it all. You know, my parents were so out of the loop in terms of what a college dorm was and what the whole process was. I came in, I kid you not, with a cardboard box with like canned food. And no decorations, no nothing. And I found here that in the US having a dorm is like a pretty big deal when it comes to finding comfy and cute things to put around, and I barely brought anything else other than those canned good products and this $49.99 Walmart buy for Mary Kay. It was this plastic container with a little lock to put all my Mary Kay products. So, honestly, my dorm room was just covered in Mary Kay products, because that was my lifeline. That was my lifeline. Menendez: As you unpacked your things, looked around, what did you think and feel about your surroundings and about the other people you were going to school with? Pierre-Bravo: I was so hopeful. I remember forgetting that I was undocumented, and forgetting about all of sort of the difficulties on getting myself to college and all the reasons why I wouldn't succeed. And I had, for the first time, hope, because I thought, "Well, if I can make it into college year one, it's only uphill from here." But, there's a lot of obstacles that came during those first year and second years of college that really almost impeded me from finishing.